


This Broken World

by lionessvalenti



Category: Hair - MacDermot/Rado/Ragni
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Explicit Language, F/M, Fights, Post-Canon, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 15:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Claude were here, he'd do this right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Broken World

"What?" Berger stared at Sheila like she had just spoken in another language. She might as well have. Her words sounded garbled, like she was a space alien from another planet.

"I'm pregnant," she repeated. She straddled his lap and took his face in her hands. She smiled down at him. Her whole body seemed to be glowing, radiating her joy and her pleasure at life growing inside her body like something out of a movie. "We're having a baby-Berger."

He grabbed her by the hips and pushed her onto the next section of the ratty sofa they had picked up after it had been abandoned on the street. He got up and pointed a finger in her face. "No. You're trying to trap me and make me into some baby making robot machine."

Sheila raised her eyebrows. "Would I do that? It happened. Babies happen. I want you to be happy for us."

"What about what I want?"

"Don't you want anything else out of your life other than being stoned all the fucking time?" She stood up and moved closer to him. She pressed her hands to his chest. "This could be--"

"I don't want your fucking baby."

Sheila didn't have anything to say to that. She stepped back and stared at him, her eyes round and wounded, but for once, she didn't say a word.

Berger swallowed. He couldn't look at her anymore, not when she looked so hurt by his words. He turned away and walked out of the tiny apartment.

It was getting cold again, and the thin tee shirt he wore without his coat wasn't enough to keep him warm. His arms broke out in goose-flesh, and he rubbed them with his hands. It helped for a minute, but he still shivered as he wandered the streets.

A baby. A fucking baby. What the fuck was she playing at?

He thought about Jeanie, and how beautiful her body had been, with the wide purple lines across her swollen stomach, and how her breasts grew larger and rounder. But it had always freaked him out when she held his hand to the swell and he could feel the baby move under her skin.

But then when she had the baby, he only lived a few hours after, and no one had seen Jeanie since.

It was that way with a lot of them. Suzanne moved to Ohio with her sister, and Dionne went on some theatre tour. Some of the guys went to Canada to avoid the draft. He sometimes saw Crissy working at a deli on 7th, and they always talked about how they should get together, but they never did.

Now it was just Berger and Sheila, somehow still together. Together because Sheila wanted them to be together and she fought for the things she wanted. And he loved her. He did. But he couldn't love her the same since--

Claude.

If Jesus fucking Claude were here, it would be okay. Claude would know what to do. If it this were Claude's baby, he'd do it right. He wouldn't have walked out on Sheila. He would have held her and kissed her neck, and told her how happy he was, and how beautiful she was, and he would have made her smile. He wouldn't have made her cry. He would have done it right.

And Berger could have pulled Claude to his bed and pressed his ear to Claude's chest and listened to his heartbeat. He could have told Claude how much it fucking scared him. Babies and death, and how he wanted to hide in the bed together forever. They would have been warm and safe, and Claude's hands would have been pressed into Berger's hair, stroking it as he talked about everything good, and all the fun things they were going to do with the baby. They would have had a life with Sheila, and it'd be like it was supposed to, with the three of them -- the _four_ of them.

But Claude wasn't here. Claude was empty space, a hole in the world, and in the atmosphere. And all they had was this broken fucking world. Who would want to bring a baby into this stupid world with its wars and death? It all ended the same.

Berger wiped at his face with the back of his cold hand. He was a hole in the world, too. He tried to disappear, tried to be invisible like Claude, but he never could make it work. Sheila always found him, always pulled him back onto this plane of existence. He _wanted_ to be stoned all the fucking time. He wanted to be in the otherworlds, because this world hurt too much. This world would always disappoint him.

The cold crept into his skin and his bones, and it was getting hard to walk. His joints felt stiff and frozen. He turned around and made his way back home. It wasn't much warmer in the apartment (a baby couldn't live like that, they'd have to find somewhere else), but at least the wind didn't cut through like holes in his jeans.

Sheila was waiting for him, sitting cross-legged on the sofa. Her eyes were red, like she'd been crying, but he didn't say anything because he'd been crying too. He dropped to his knees in front of her and fell face first into her lap. He wrapped his arms around her, and she stroked his hair.

They didn't need to speak as he sobbed against her thigh. He was sorry. Sorry that Claude wasn't there to do this the way it was supposed to be done, and that he couldn't be another person, no matter how many drugs he took, and that they'd never be right, not without Claude. That they were empty and broken, and nothing could fix it. He couldn't be a good person. He couldn't be a person that was happy about babies and could hold the tribe together. He was a person who let them fall apart. He couldn't be glue.

"You know what I keep thinking about?" Sheila asked. She wasn't really waiting for him to reply, she just wanted him to listen. He couldn't talk anyway, not in sentences or words. "I'm thinking about who this baby is going to be, the little person she'll be. I'm thinking about who she was, and what she did in all her previous lives. This soul wanted to be with us. This soul belongs with us, you know that, right?"

Berger looked up at Sheila, and she was smiling down at him through her tears. She ran her fingers over his stubbly chin and wiped his cheeks with her thumbs. She loved him and he could never figure out why.

There was only one soul that belonged with them. Right then, they both knew who this baby was, and who she would be. And they would be a family again.


End file.
